


An Intimate of Kings

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Children of the Sun [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Familiars, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7910926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After seeing what he saw at the Sorting Feast, Severus has a thing or two to say to the Headmaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Intimate of Kings

**Author's Note:**

> This follows immediately after "The Breath of a Flame," so make sure you've read the other installments in this series first.

"I should have known you would come to visit me, Severus."

If Albus had sounded weary or surprised or _anything_ other than cheerful, Severus might have forgiven him. As it was, he only narrowed his eyes and sank into the chair before the desk, checking first to make sure that Fawkes was on his perch. There were times that damn golden phoenix had thought it was funny to preen Severus's hair.

Around his neck, his silver Shadowstriker coiled a few tense turns of muscle. Severus had been unable to calm him much during the feast. Of course, Shadowstriker picked up on all his emotions this time, but it probably also had to do with the damn great snake crawling along at Potter's feet.

The _golden_ snake.

"Are you all right, Severus? Lemon drop? Or perhaps scones with extra cream. I find I'm never so clear-headed as when my stomach is full of cream--"

"Why didn't you tell me that Harry Potter had a golden familiar?"

"Because I didn't know myself until he showed up here. Now, you never told me what you want, a scone or a lemon drop. Or perhaps just the cream by itself. I won't tell Minerva you ate it by itself if you don't."

"How could you--" Severus felt as if someone had sucked all the air out of his chest. Shadowstriker curled up beside him and nudged gently, urgently, at his chin. "How could you not _know?_ You must have checked on him over the years!"

Albus sighed and, for a moment, looked old and serious. “Alas, that is something I did _not_ do. I was so careful to keep Harry away from wizarding influence that I didn’t want to show myself. And I couldn’t appear and then leave again without being seen the way that an ordinary wizard might be able to do.” He nodded at Fawkes, and then added, “Not that he would matter in a Muggle neighborhood, but one of our own might have seen me. And Petunia knows what I look like.”

Severus felt himself freeze, all the way through his body. On his shoulder, Shadowstriker reared up as a silver statue. He always had when Severus was that angry.

“You left him,” said Severus, and his voice echoed and did odd things in his own ears, “with _Tuney_?”

“What a delightful nickname!” Albus said, sucking on his sweet, and utterly impervious to the glare Severus tried to cast him. “I’d forgotten you knew each other.” _Right, old man. You forget nothing._ “But yes, she knows me. I did appear once after she took Harry in, when he was still too young for his familiar to have manifested. I let her know that she _did_ have to keep Harry.”

“But not well.” Severus leaned forwards and lowered his voice. “You saw as well as I did the runes on the snake’s back.”

Albus’s hand closing into a fist that delayed the next sweet was the only sign he’d heard Severus. “I did,” he said. “I do not like the signs. But Harry survived, and he is here now. And with a golden familiar.” He chuckled and shook his head. “We shall have to reconsider our plans.”

“And my _life_.” Severus felt Shadowstriker wrap himself about Severus’s neck, but nothing could soothe him right now. “How can I justify maltreating the boy or pretending to know nothing important about him to keep my cover as a spy? When his importance is right there beside him!”

“We will make sure that you do not need to endanger either yourself or Harry, Severus. This does change things. I had no idea that Harry would manifest a golden familiar. Or a snake.”

Severus jolted, the way he always did when he heard Albus speak about snakes or Slytherins that way. For a moment, just a moment, he wondered if the great Albus Dumbledore was jealous that there was someone else with a golden familiar in the wizarding world now, and someone whose runes showed that he’d been forced to master magic at a much younger age than even the prodigy Albus had managed.

But then he shook his head. No, that would be ridiculous. Far more likely that Albus was bothered by the fact of Potter’s familiar being a snake.

The Dark Lord’s had been, after all. And although his Nagini had been silver and not golden, she had been an immense silver python, and had proven the legends—that those with exceptionally large familiars of their color weren’t all that different in strength from people in the rank above them—true enough.

“What kind of familiar did you expect Potter to have?” Severus asked. It might be his only chance to ask the question.

Albus sighed and calmed, and Fawkes flew to his shoulder. The phoenix’s feathers were so bright that it was sometimes hard to look directly at him, the way it would be with a mirror flashing in the sunlight. Potter’s snake was different, Severus thought. More the warm glow of candlelight. “I don’t know. A stag, I suppose, like his father.”

_Or a dolphin, like his mother?_ Severus had to admit that he didn’t find other people’s habit of forgetting Lily and her Serena that irritating, though. It made their memory more purely his and Shadowstriker’s.

“Well, he does not.” Severus paused, and then decided to dare one more question. Albus might sink back into cryptic riddling any second, but he hadn’t so far. “And his Sorting? Did that surprise you?”

“Of course. You know we all expected him to go into Gryffindor.”

“Yes, we did,” said Severus. He felt foolish now. There was never any guarantee that a child would follow family precedent. He had been fairly sure that Draco would, but he had no knowledge of Potter’s recent life as he did of Draco’s.

He had climbed to his feet when he thought of something else. He shot a glance at Albus, but he was talking softly with his phoenix in a way Severus knew. Pressing now would earn him smiles and platitudes that would drive him mad until he left in disgust.

He bade Albus good-night and left, one hand stroking Shadowstriker’s smooth scales as he made his way to the dungeons to inspect the new crop of Slytherins. But the thought he had had remained on his mind.

The Dark Lord had been not only gifted with a silver python familiar, but also with Parseltongue. That meant he could command any familiar with reptilian ancestry. Shadowstriker, Lucius’s silver wyvern Hecate, Bellatrix’s bronze and frankly disturbing two-headed Ashwinder, so many other Slytherins’…

It had practically granted him the allegiance of Slytherin House. His blood, his gift, his great snake, and the way their own snakes and dragons and lizards and crocodiles crowded around him. Even now, Severus could remember, with a shiver over his skin, how he had felt when the Dark Lord spoke to Shadowstriker in that language he could not understand. Not violated, only honored, as if the Dark Lord had chosen to notice and caress his soul.

There might be more than one problem with Harry Potter having a boa familiar. Or anaconda. In truth, Severus had not got a good enough look at the thing to be sure what kind of snake it was.

Severus grimaced. Perhaps Albus would not have been able to answer the question for him. Or perhaps it would remain unanswered until the Dark Lord returned. While the Dark Lord was an incredibly powerful wizard and a Parselmouth, Harry Potter still had a golden familiar.

Severus would have to get to know him better than he’d been planning on, when he could have safely ignored his familiar as one more silver one—or even bronze, although he hadn’t truly thought the boy would sink that low—and simply hated him for the reflection of James Potter in his face. And he would have to get to know him as a _Hufflepuff._

But Severus never thought of not getting to know him. He had known the Dark Lord well. Now he knew Albus well. 

When a new king appeared, it was wise for those who looked to their own survival to become intimate with him.

 _Merlin._ He just hoped the boy liked Potions.


End file.
